That a Voice Be True
by Ragnelle
Summary: -a praise-song. When, and how, is a man's true voice to be found? Written for Teitho: "Music" where it tied for first.


**A/N:** This was written for the Teitho-contest for October 2011. The challenge was "Music", where it tied for first place. I want to thank the voters: I did not expect it to do so well.

I have made a small revision since then – my thanks to **Lady Bluejay** who spotted an unclear point.

_Disclaimer_**:** All characters and places are the property of the Tolkien estate. This is written purely for entertainment and at no monetary gain

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><p><strong>That a Voice Be True<br>**- a praise-song.

Once your voice flowed with the clear, high tone of childhood. Crisp, focused and thin like a small silver flute. The voices of the Elves were richer, deeper; echoing with gold or mithril, or green grass and trees and living things, but they had lost that brittle sound of boyhood and innocence that can never be regained.

It was the only thing in your childhood that the Elves could not match, and you were doomed to lose it.

Still, it was not the years that change a boy to man that wrought the greatest change in your voice. No, that change came later, with hardship and blood, and the long, weary years of waiting and toil. Grief changed your voice, made it deep and filled it with gravel and sand until it rasped from your throat.

In the South you spoke your words, and did not lift your voice in song although the men around you sang with voices like your own. No Elves to fill the nights with tones of precious metal or living greens; here the dry sand covered more than tents and clothes, grass and stone. Here the sand covered the heart, unless, for a moment, it was washed away by the cool, clear waters of innocent childhood.

There, in the South, the very brightness of the sun shadowed the day, and men sought the Shadow in the heat of day. Their songs and stars were strange, and the lands were harsh. But good and evil did not change, and their voices matched your own.

You brought with you the warmth of the sun, and the sweet spices and the golden sand of the desert when you left, and when again you saw the clear skies, and mountains clad in snow, and breathed the crisp air of the lands where you were born, you sang once more. The snowmelt and the spices mixed, but did not blend, and the sun and sand warred against the sky.

But your heart sang. You looked upon your empty hand, and joy was in your eye, and joy was in your heart and joy was on your lips, and with that joy both heart and voice sang. And all that heard you, heard that joy, voiced in unripe song.

Years still that song would have to grow. Years of toil and sweat and fear, of grief and blood, of life and rest, and of the turning year; from green to bloom to gold and to the bitter fear of white-cold snow and death, until the wheel turned round another year and grass and flowers grew. And Hope, crisp and clear in silver reeds, sounded through the spices and the sand, through sun and snow and sky, and through the grit and grief.

And when the gold of South blended with the hard mithril of the North, and with the bright Western wind, and with the shadowed East; deep, deep your fervour voiced your heart in breath and song.

Your voice rasped with truth, deep from the centre of the earth. No boy, no youth; a man, with Man's voice: gold and silver, yes, but more than that: hard steel and dark earth. Life and death and joy, joy, joy! of promised land and life lived true.

That day you sang, the promise of your life fulfilled, and promise new you made. Your voice would never bear again that crisp, thin timbre of your boyhood's silver-flute, but in your kingship's glory and the grit of muddy roads your voice was strong, and borne upon the wind your words grew:

"_Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!"_

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><p><strong>Translation and reference: <strong>

_Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!_

Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.

RotK, The Steward and the King.

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><p><strong>Additional AN: **I am a bit curious about which of the allusions I make to Aragorn's life that are easy to spot, and which that are more difficult. If you decide to review, I would be very happy if you let me know.


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